Vegas P.R.O. Meeting (2 Viewers)

[Sean D, shondoo]

Please inform us all of any successful group/organization where the participants control the league/business. If you say stick and ball sports, you have forgotten the commissioners office, and that the player's unions are against the owners. It has been my experience that when participants control a competitive entity, it fails, usually sooner rather than later.

Thank you for finally stating the real point that needs to be driven home here. I'm not saying that PRO doesn't need to exist, because it does. There needs to be some sort of liason because in the case of the NHRA, there simply isn't enough applicable knowledge at the top. But at the same time, it can never evolve into PRO running the show. Like Virgil said, that type of structure usally fails sooner than later, so all of the folks out there calling out the "manhood" of the PRO better read this paragraph very carefully.

Sean D

 

[Baron]

I do not think that there is nor can there be a conflict between those who care about the customer and the sport's growth versus those "who just want to make money for the organization."
Growth and profitability result from caring about the customer.
Cheers,
Ed Arcuri
Rocky Mountain Superchargers

"It'll never work, but it's certainly worth a try!" Maxwell Smart

 

[Treeshaker]

I guess when we went to the lanes for Q3 and the run sheet had us in group one, lane 4, and the Greek in group two lane 3, I was seeing a mirage because in the lanes they moved the Greek to group one and us back to group 2, a group that included BB. The lineups were changed after we were pulled into the staging lanes with our assigned group. We were directed by officials how to let some cars around us in our lane and how to merge into the other group's lane when cars started moving.

Then the same scenario happened again in Q4 with the same players involved.

Check the printed run schedules given each team prior to a session against how we ran and then explain why it took place twice. I will ignore all the other information I have if you can explain it factually, not just with assumptions.

It is naive to think that teams can't/don't manipulate who they will run against in qualifying at times. There are some drivers at certain times that some teams will not run against, and if there is a single in the session it does get moved around. And sometimes singles are created. When some cars do not show, pairings sometimes are changed, and sometimes not. Depends on the session and the pairings. And it is very naive to think that an NHRA official is going to admit that it happens on the record.

It is easy to check what happened in qualifying from printed matter. The rest I will not post about anymore as to prove what I said to be truthful takes the collaboration of others, some members of this board, that do not want to be involved publically. It is a mute point anyway, as NHRA stepped up and made a decision, right or wrong, that they feel will best benefit them in the long run.

 

[Tim5636sc]

This is getting GOOD...

 

[megadeth]

I was a sponsor/facilitator/consultant/researcher during the event in Charlotte. I was not a team owner. Do I expect a ROI? You Betcha! Just as NHRA, Bruton Smith or any prudent business man/woman does.

My posts on this board were made after deducing information I saw, heard, or read (after checking a second source) personally during and after the event. All of them are my opinions, nothing more, nothing less.

Any name you apply to my "attack" is your assumption. But if I was a "well connected journalist", it would be easy for me to check facts to prove/disprove stories, not just shrug them off as "untruthful". Check the starting line crew Friday evening, or people in the tower a little later, or the staging lanes Saturday. Maybe Bruton and Marcus Smith read my posts to come to their conclusions.

I respect everyone's right to express their opinion. If I feel there is erroneous information or fiction contained, I will check it out and respond accordingly. Sometimes the media/posters will report and perpetuate "pr spin" rather than do some leg work and find out the facts.

Please inform us all of any successful group/organization where the participants control the league/business. If you say stick and ball sports, you have forgotten the commissioners office, and that the player's unions are against the owners. It has been my experience that when participants control a competitive entity, it fails, usually sooner rather than later.

Only if you have somebody (or group) who knows what the hell they are doing while in charge!
This doesn’t seem to be the case here!
That’s cool how did you enjoy your temporary position?
Hope to see you and your team out there in the future once a few years isn't enough.

 

[90-percent]

Yeah, this was getting good.

I was in a Tech Support role for most of my career. I really liked it because I like to engage people and help them get their CNC equipment to "do what it's supposed to do".

I liked listening to customers and help them solve their problems. I was very customer driven and I prided myself in returning phone calls. I even called back if I didn't yet have a solution. "Haven't forgot about you, Fred".

And out of 6 guys in my department I was the one chosen for layoff February 2009, so what the hell do I know?

But that's a different issue. I just don't like any enterprise where it's all about them and what you the customer can do for them. I don't like arrogance at all, but it's especially rankling when I'm the customer and I want to buy something. Is there anybody that enjoys dealing with arrogant people?

To take just one issue, look at Tee shirt sales at the races. remember the good old days when racers sold tees out of the back of their trailers. That stopped a long time ago because NHRA came up with a plan to extract all the money out of tee shirts for themselves.

that's been resolved in the last few years to an extent, but I bet there's plenty of second tier racers- alcohol, pro mod, guys, that could use the extra income tee shirt sales provide. The non-touring pro-hobbyists that can't afford a tee shirt trailer per current NHRA practice. It's their identity they are selling, after all. Why should some other entity take that money from them in the form of extraction? BECAUSE THEY CAN!

EXTRACTION. It's a wonderful term to encapsulate in one word the current state of Wall Street and the Bankers and much of corporate behavior in general. And NHRA is not even close to the same league as most of these guys. I would say NHRA is close to the norm in modern corporate business practices.

I can't resist, I got this from a historic nitro racer buddy of mine;

"NHRA would step over a dollar to pick up a dime."

Most of what they do involves taking the pie slices from somebody else, usually a "customer" as I described in my previous post. I just wish they could be bigger thinkers and do more stuff to grow the pie and share prosperity for all, rather than making their share bigger by making their "customers" share smaller!

Jon said; "Much of what Jim Becktel says is true, I believe, although some of it goes a little far"

More than a little, Jon. I devoured Hunter Thompson when I was a youth. I lean towards the hyperbolic because I like to enjoy myself when I write. Irreverence rocks, baby! Weird times like these calls for weird people to post about it!

Studying the life and words of Frank Zappa since the October 17, 1971 Mothers of Invention late show at Stony Brook University transformed me into a life long Zappa fan. That has more to do with it, actually.

"Without deviation there is no progress" -Frank Zappa

90% Jimmy

 

[90-percent]

I agree with Virgil that the clowns should not be running the circus. I too would like to see examples where that has been successful.

Here's my blue sky scenario for NHRA:

GET ROGER PENSKE TO RUN IT!

Now, that would never ever happen, of course, but just think of the possibilities if it did!

-90% Jimmy

 

[megadeth]

I agree with Virgil that the clowns should not be running the circus. I too would like to see examples where that has been successful.

Here's my blue sky scenario for NHRA:

GET ROGER PENSKE TO RUN IT!

Now, that would never ever happen, of course, but just think of the possibilities if it did!

-90% Jimmy

I think everybodies in agreement that PRO shouldn't be in charge! I wounldn't refer to them as clowns!
But they should be considered and kept in the loop of what they (NHRA) expects them to do!

The players have a lot of say and their thoughts are considered in the stick and ball ranks and those are the people they pay gross amounts of income.
Imagine one guy's salary in stick and ball sports for just one year could fund 5teams for one year or one team for 5.....
Don't get mad that stick and ball sports dwarf ALL forms of motorsports!

 

[clwill]

IMHO, you do not have to have been a racer to run NHRA, any more than you have to have been an usher to make great movies. But it sure does help.

What really matters is that you have a passion for what you do. That you love it, live it, breathe it, and can't imagine doing anything else. When the business/sport/company hurts, you hurt. When it soars, you soar. That you care about the people who work in it, that you care deeply about the customers, that you care about the long-term health of the organization.

You don't have to have it since birth. Look at Alan Mulally of Ford. He was an airplane guy who moved over to Ford and the company is hitting on all cylinders. He wasn't a "car guy", but a great businessman who threw himself fully into the car business. He's passionate about it, and it shows.

Wally made NHRA great because he cared. I can't say the same for anyone on top of NHRA today. It seems like everyone is "playing business", going through the motions, holding press conferences -- no one really cares. Compton seems like he could be managing a food processing plant, heading a garbage workers union, or selling toothpaste. You don't hear passion in his voice when he talks about the sport. You hear corporate mumbo-jumbo.

At this point, talk about taking the sport "to the next level" is BS. I'd like to see it stop falling... And the only person showing any passion about the professional level is Bruton Smith. I don't like 4-wide, but he has passion, and gets things done. That's great. We need more like him. In charge of NHRA preferably.

And there is NO ONE who is speaking for the sportsman level. Period. If I had an analogy worse than the "ba***rd step-child", I'd use it for the non-pro level of racing. We're just the ones who keep the lights on, with fees and certifications. "Keep quiet, pay your money, and stay out of the way." If there were a way to run a sport without the minor leagues, I'm sure Compton and crew would love to try it.

It's sad to see a sport grow largely because of the vision and passion of one guy, and the minute he's gone it goes down the crapper. It happens all the time in business, the founder moves on and the business atrophies and dies. But it's sad to watch it happen to a sport I love.

 

[Paul]

I agree with Virgil that the clowns should not be running the circus. I too would like to see examples where that has been successful.

Jim, the NFL is probably the best example of a participant run organization that works well.

The NFL is structured as a non-profit 501(c)(6) "business league", which is special kind of business entity that by law is required to have the following two key properties. Its purpose must only be to further the "business interests" of its members and it must be primarily controlled by its members.

The NHRA is also a 501(c)(6) business league entity and thus is supposed to be run in a very similar fashion to the way the NFL is run.

In a nutshell, here's how the NFL works. The NFL business league organization owns all the league oriented assets, ie trademarks, marketing rights, television contracts, etc. But the NFL doesn't own the individual teams, those are separate business entities that participate in the NFL as members. As a business league entity, the NFL itself can never be sold. Its assets can be sold, but only if the sales of those assets are directly used to further the business interests of its members, who are the team owners.

The NFL organization is ultimately controlled though voting by the member owners, who elect the NFL commissioner. If they don't like the way things are going, they can have that commissioner removed and another one put in place. The NFL members also determine the rules and terms underwhich new members can join the NFL, which they obviously control tightly to avoid over expansion of the league. The NFL members also control the rules of the league through votes at annual meetings.

Any revenue generated by the NFL (ie television contracts, etc.) must by law either be distributed evenly to the members or used to directly further the "business interests" of the member/owners, ie expanding the league, providing loans for new stadiums, etc.

The NHRA was originally set up as this exact same 501(c)(6) business league entity and remains that type of organization to this date.

However, the NHRA is not conforming to the required guidelines for business league entities and its current management, in the process of protecting their own self interests, has done a pretty good job of hiding these required guidelines from its members, most of whom don't understand exactly how the NHRA is supposed to be run. Here's how it is supposed to be run.

The NHRA officers and its board members (and their salaries) should be determined by a democratic process involving the NHRA members, typically a voting process. The NHRA rules, schedules, etc. should also be determined by this process.

As a 501(c)(6) organization, the NHRA is only allowed to have members that are engaging in a legitimate business activity. This means only the professional racers, and those racing in the sportsman divisions but as a legitimate business, are eligible to be full voting members of the NHRA. Non-professional racers can participate in NHRA events, but can't have the voting rights and other benefits that full members do.

So the NHRA is out of compliance with the rules for their type of business entity in several ways. They are not allowing the members to have the required ultimate control of the organization. They also are allowing non-professional members to the have the same rights and benefits as professional members.

Apparently many years ago the NHRA held a membership vote that "officially" removed most of the rights that the members of a business league are required to have, such as ultimate control of the organization.

I believe that this vote could be overturned for for two legimate reasons.

Firstly its illegal to run a business league organization in a way that is not in compliance with the rules for business leagues, and removing membership control is clearly a violation of the rules.

Secondly this vote apparently was a vote by all the members that the NHRA at that time had in their membership list, but the majority of that list included non-professional members, who by law are not eligible to be voting members. This vote that by majority included non-eligible members appears to be clearly subject to challenge and could likely be overturned.

At some point I hope the NHRA professional members will wake up and realize that they should, through a democratic process, be ultimately controlling the NHRA. In many ways I think the NFL would be a good model for them to follow in a re-organization of the NHRA. A strong but fair NHRA commissioner would be critical to a good chance of success.

 

[Tim5636sc]

However, the NHRA is not conforming to the required guidelines for business league entities and its current management, in the process of protecting their own self interests, has done a pretty good job of hiding these required guidelines from its members, most of whom don't understand exactly how the NHRA is supposed to be run. Here's how it is supposed to be run.

The NHRA officers and its board members (and their salaries) should be determined by a democratic process involving the NHRA members, typically a voting process. The NHRA rules, schedules, etc. should also be determined by this process.

As a 501(c)(6) organization, the NHRA is only allowed to have members that are engaging in a legitimate business activity. This means only the professional racers, and those racing in the sportsman divisions but as a legitimate business, are eligible to be full voting members of the NHRA. Non-professional racers can participate in NHRA events, but can't have the voting rights and other benefits that full members do.

So the NHRA is out of compliance with the rules for their type of business entity in several ways. They are not allowing the members to have the required ultimate control of the organization. They also are allowing non-professional members to the have the same rights and benefits as professional members.

Apparently many years ago the NHRA held a membership vote that "officially" removed most of the rights that the members of a business league are required to have, such as ultimate control of the organization.

I believe that this vote could be overturned for for two legimate reasons.

Firstly its illegal to run a business league organization in a way that is not in compliance with the rules for business leagues, and removing membership control is clearly a violation of the rules.

Secondly this vote apparently was a vote by all the members that the NHRA at that time had in their membership list, but the majority of that list included non-professional members, who by law are not eligible to be voting members. This vote that by majority included non-eligible members appears to be clearly subject to challenge and could likely be overturned.

At some point I hope the NHRA professional members will wake up and realize that they should, through a democratic process, be ultimately controlling the NHRA. In many ways I think the NFL would be a good model for them to follow in a re-organization of the NHRA. A strong but fair NHRA commissioner would be critical to a good chance of success.

Paul:

You do remember the NHRA MEMBERSHIP voted away their right to vote several years ago right? They voted away their right by clearly not voting at all. A NON-VOTE was considered a vote in favor of giving voting rights to the board of directors. I believe the percentage of people who actually submitted votes was less than 20 %.

I'm sure Mr. Asher can clarify this.

 

[90-percent]

Bob: "clowns running the circus" is just a figure of speech. In no way did I mean to be disrespectful to the PRO members. They are my heros!

Paul I will re-read your NFL stuff. It's some dense info that takes too much thinking!

Chris - where your heart is is key! All the racers have a hell of a lot of love they put into their racing. It would be nice of there were more in NHRA that shared their passions. It would be nice if NHRA personnel were as pumped up about their roles as the racers are. (I think there's a lot of extremely passionate NHRA employees out there, but may not so much in the management hierarchy in NHRA?)

I recall back in the 90's there was the management science meme that "a good manager can manage anything". I fervently do not believe that!

A long time ago I worked with a guy that said he was a Green Beret in Viet Nam. The type of person comfortable with killing people with his bare hands. What amazed me about this guy is that he was so timid when it came to management. With the management guys, he was the quintessential brown noser doormat type. How could he be so courageous in Viet Nam and such a chicken s**t at work?

Well, I think there's an analogy there about the people in PRO. But it perhaps isn't a good one. I think the independent hard working competitors that make up PRO jsut don't have the heart to act collectively. They are too independent by their nature to cooperate with a group. And the well sponsored ones are corporate employees in a sense. Their sponsors certainly wouldn't want to be a part of anything that looked like a typical "management vs. labor" issue. There's not too many corporations out there that are keen on unions, after all!

-jim

 

[Paul]

Paul:

You do remember the NHRA MEMBERSHIP voted away their right to vote several years ago right? They voted away their right by clearly not voting at all. A NON-VOTE was considered a vote in favor of giving voting rights to the board of directors. I believe the percentage of people who actually submitted votes was less than 20 %.

I'm sure Mr. Asher can clarify this.

Tim, that's the vote I was referring to in the previous post and I don't feel that the vote would stand up to a legal challenge for two reasons.

Whether its by a claimed member vote or not, you can't legally operate a business organization in a way that doesn't conform to the required rules for that type of organization, and by having members no longer have ultimate control over the NHRA they are in conflict with the rules for 501(c)(6) business leagues.

Secondly the vote was apparently done with members who were both professional and non-professional in their racing operations, but only professional members are eligible to be voting members of a 501(c)(6).
So the majority of these voters were likely in-eligible members and this vote could likely be overturned.

I'm not sure why anyone hasn't pursued trying to force the NHRA to conform to the rules that bound them. I can understand while Wally Parks was alive that no one felt comfortable rocking the boat, but given the current management and their track history over the last few years maybe its just a lack of understanding of the how the NHRA is supposed to be run that is holding racers back from taking back control of the NHRA.

I'm not an attorney and its certainly possible that there are some holes in what I've written. However having been in business for a while I do have some experience in the various types of business structures used in practice, and after looking into the past history of the NHRA and studying the documents that describe business league organizations like the NHRA, what I wrote is based on my best understanding of the situation.

I think PRO should pool some legal funds, at least enough for an initial investigation, and hire an attorney who specializes in non-profit business structures to write a opinion for them on their options to gain better control over the NHRA.

 

[megadeth]

Bob: "clowns running the circus" is just a figure
-jim

Sorry Jim!

 

[Dragracer]

Take a look at Ron Capps letter on Competition Plus. Ron tells what went on at the Vegas meeting and discusses other PRO items.

 

[Mooseman]

Take a look at Ron Capps letter on Competition Plus. Ron tells what went on at the Vegas meeting and discusses other PRO items.

Link? I can't seem to find it on Comp Plus

 

[T.Smith]

The NHRA has been assigning pairings and run order for some time, and they do not deviate from their pre-issued listings. If someone doesn’t show the car he or she was supposed to face gets a single. They do not move the line up to fill that void.

Jon Asher
Senior Editor
Competitionplus.com

That's not true and I could show you our run sheet from Houston Q4 to prove it.

I could go into a deeper conversation about this, but chose not to do so here on this forum, look me up at Atlanta if you care to hear it.

 

[MM]

and i saw the same one from charlotte that virgil mentioned

 

[rollingthunder]

Link? I can't seem to find it on Comp Plus

Me either a link would be nice.

 

[Dragracer]

Look on Competition Plus-Breaking News. Right now its at the top of the listing. If it moves just click on Breaking News at the bottom and it will bring it up.